Alabama DOC Terminates $1 Billion Contract with YesCare
In late April of this year, the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) announced it had terminated its 5-year, $1 billion contract with prison healthcare profiteer YesCare. According to reporting by the Alabama Reflector, the contract was axed because the company could not meet payroll to pay its employees. The DOC also announced that it would replace YesCare with another for-profit healthcare provider, NaphCare, under an emergency contract that began on May 3.
The DOC made its decision days after several YesCare staffers refused to show up for work due to delayed paychecks. Given the history of YesCare, which spun off from Corizon Health in 2022 as part of a strategy to avoid paying creditors amid bankruptcy proceedings, this turn of events shouldn’t come as a surprise. [See: PLN, Aug. 2023, p.36.]
More recently, in March 2026, YesCare lost its protection from Chapter 11 bankruptcy by failing to make a scheduled $2 million installment payment; as a result, the firm lost its shield from lawsuits launched by hundreds of prisoners claiming medical malpractice, negligence, and other issues. “Who knew that a company that started off bankrupt, who took this deal so it can pay creditors, ended up bankrupt?” state Representative Chris England (D-Tuscaloosa) told the Alabama Reflector. “Who couldn’t see that coming?”
While the terms of the new contract with the Birmingham-based NaphCare have not yet been disclosed, it’s unlikely that the switch will have much of an impact on the quality of healthcare, or lack thereof, in Alabama prisons. NaphCare, like YesCare (and Corizon before it) as well as Wellpath, Centurion, and the rest, has a long record of cutting corners, understaffing, negligence, malpractice, and preventable deaths.
In this issue of PLN alone, we report on a settlement agreement that NaphCare signed with the state of New York in March 2026 for engaging in deceptive business practices. The company was forced to pay $875,000 and is now banned from contracting in New York for five years. Also, a related settlement after a detainee’s suicide last year resulted in a $750,000 award from NaphCare. [See: PLN, May 2026, p.28; p.50.]
Sources: Alabama Reflector, The Wall Street Journal
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